Category: Zentangle Inspired Art

The first class for the year will be on “Borders”. I’ve had several requests for this class and thought that the new year is a great time to explore this theme. Other requests have been for journals, so I’m combining both themes with a very relaxed start to the year. If you have a journal, 2019 diary or notebook and would like to decorate some pages with borders, then bring it along. If you don’t have a journal, come along and decorate some tiles instead. It is up to you!

If you need any encouragement or motivation to start a journal visit UNESCO SIX exhibition at the State Library of New South Wales. This is an amazing collection of First Fleet Journals, WWI Diaries and notebooks. I visited there today. You can read more about this on the State Library website.

Pocket diaries by Miles Franklin. Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin – ‘Stella’ to her family (activist, feminist, writer)on display at the State Library, New South Wales

To book into the class, go to the bookings page and fill out the form. Looking forward to seeing you!

A great way to develop our art practice is to continually research and investigate other artists’ works. Google Arts & Culture is an art project by Google which has given access to amazing artworks and art institutes and galleries around the globe. Many of the images have been captured in ultra-high resolution measured in gigapixels. This means that you can zoom into these paintings and view the actual brush strokes of the artist. It is well worth a look.

I’ve been experimenting with watercolour recently. These tiles were made by starting with watercolour on the tile. I used my Windsor & Newton travel watercolour set which I usually carry around with me. After laying down the colour I used a variety of methods to produce tangles (or patterns) on the tile. With coloured pens I traced around the edges of some of the watercolours and then then used a brown or similar coloured pen to draw tangles between the colours. I loved the effects and I’m going to practice more using this method.

Well perhaps not exactly Zentangle but I thought I would share some information and links to the Mindfulness Summit. It’s so relevant to my Zentangle practice and about how I want to view life and the world. The Zentangle Method is a way of producing art in a mindful or meditative way. It encourages focus and being present while drawing repetitive patterns. The method is a form of meditation, as I gently pull and push my pen across the paper while watching and focussing on the ink flowing and marking the beautiful paper. Following the method allows me to produce art without the need for decisions. The artwork develops intuitively while either staying within the strings or perhaps breaking free.

I’ve been following the Mindfulness Summit everyday and tuning in to the lectures. It’s only Day 8 and I feel I have gained a deeper understanding of mindfulness and how to apply it to my everyday living.

Meditation has become a daily practice while focussing on my breath. The Summit is enabling me to experiment with a wide variety of meditation practices.